Etihad’s second A380 will be operating the EY450/451 service which is currently being operated by a 777-300ER. This is an excellent aircraft swap especially if you’re in a premium cabin. EY451 leaves Sydney at 3:20 pm local time and arrives into Abu Dhabi at 11:55 pm local time. Flying all day in a premium product is much more worth it than flying overnight.

For passengers, this is awesome news!

Passengers wishing to fly in the Residence now have two choices of when they’d like to depart. If I were to do it again, I’d definitely take the afternoon service.

Etihad Residence Living Room

On top of that, passengers redeeming for First and Business Class will find it much easier to find award seats. I’m very glad that Sydney is getting another A380 and it means more options for passengers.

Sydney isn’t the first destination to receive 2 A380’s. From June 1st New York will have double daily and London will have three daily A380 services, that means flying you can fly from Sydney all the way to either London or New York in luxury without having long stopovers.

The 777 features Etihad’s older Business, First Class and Economy products so this really is a massive improvement. Here’s how many seats are being added with the A380, The A380 features 1 more First seat than the 777, 30 more Business seats than the 777 and 133 more Economy seats than the 777.

Etihad A380 Business Class

Passengers in the Residence, First and Business may also enjoy the Lobby area which is in between Business and First Class. This previously wasn’t offered on the 777.

I very briefly talked about the Sydney lounge yesterday and wanted to quickly touch on that. Sydney will be the only lounge that receives 2 A380’s but doesn’t have a Residence lounge, do you think Etihad will upgrade or build a new lounge? Both London and New York have one.

Etihad Lounge Sydney (Image – Etihad)

The aircraft swap is also a mark of celebrating 10 years of operations to Australia. I think this is fantastic news for both the airline and passengers. Passengers will receive a much newer and enhanced product and it’s good to see the airline doing well on the route.

Zac is a teen who has been obsessed with travel since the age of 2. Now flying 200,000+ miles per year and blogging about luxury travel. Points From The Pacific is a blog that posts about the latest airline news, insights, reviews and guides to help travellers use their points to travel in first and business class.